Jarvis Jay Masters - Finding Freedom: Writings from Death Row

Published by Padma Publishing

P.O. Box 279

Junction City, CA 96048-0279

www.tibetantreasures.com

Jarvis Masters 1997

Portions of this book previously appeared in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing 1997; Second Printing 2000; Third Printing 2003; Fourth Printing 2006

Fifth Printing 2008; Sixth Printing (Prison Edition) 2013; eBook 2015

Cover photo of San Quentin Cary Groner

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Masters, Jarvis Jay, 1962

Finding freedom : writings from death row / Jarvis Jay Masters. p. cm.

ISBN: 978-1-881847-08-3 Softcover (200 pages)

ISBN: 978-1-881847-51-9 eBook

1. Death row inmatesCaliforniaSan QuentinLiterary collections. 2. PrisonersCaliforniaSan QuentinLiterary collections. 3. Death rowCaliforniaSan QuentinLiterary collections. 4. Prisoners writings, AmericanCaliforniaSan Quentin. 5. PrisonsCaliforniaSan QuentinCorrespondence. 6. Masters, Jarvis Jay, 1962 Correspondence. I. Title. PS 3563.A826F56 1997 97-22092 CIP 810.80920692DC21

Contents

Foreword

AS ONE OF THE DEFENSE investigators who prepared Jarviss trial, I looked into the details of his life and learned how far he has traveled spiritually in one short lifetime. Jarvis was born in 1962, the same year my oldest child was born. I met Jarviss mother, Cynthia, while working on his case, but she died of heart failure just before his trial. She had not seen him for many years. All of Cynthias children were raised in foster care because she was addicted to drugs. Jarviss father had left the family and later he too became an addict. In a series of foster care placements, Jarvis was separated from his siblings. For several years, he stayed in his favorite home, with an elderly couple he loved, but when they became too old to care for him, he was moved again, at the age of nine. After that, Jarvis ran away from several foster homes, and went back to the elderly peoples house. He was then sent to the countys large locked facility for dependent children, and later to some more group homes. Once, he stayed with an aunt for a while, but he got in trouble. At twelve, he became a ward of the court because of delinquency, and was in and out of institutions after that.

During my investigation I met people who had known Jarvis in foster care and institutions, and they told me he had always had a lot of potential. They remembered a smart and articulate youngster with a sense of humor. But too many times he was pushedand he wentin the wrong direction.

At the age of seventeen, when he was a very angry young man, he was released from the California Youth Authority and went on a crime spree, holding up stores and restaurants until he was captured and sent to San Quentin. He never shot anyone, but the big stack of reports that I read about his crimes was scary. As I told him, Im glad I wasnt in Taco Bell when he came through.

When Jarvis arrived in San Quentin in 1981 he was nineteen. Right away he got involved in what the prison system calls a gang. Most young men coming into prisonblack, brown, and whitegroup together for a sense of belonging, for family. In those days, older African American prisoners passed on political education to younger ones.

In 1985, an officer named Sergeant Burchfield was murdered in San Quentin, stabbed to death at night on the second tier of a cell block. At the time, Jarvis was locked in his cell on the fourth tier.

Although many inmates were suspected of conspiring to murder Sergeant Burchfield, only three were tried, Jarvis among them. One was accused of being the spear manof actually stabbing the sergeant. Another, an older man, was accused of ordering the killing. Jarvis was accused of sharpening a piece of metal which was allegedly passed along and later used to make the spear with which the sergeant was stabbed.

In one of the longest trials in California history, all three were convicted of their parts in the conspiracy to kill Sergeant Burchfield. But their sentences varied. One jury gave the young spear man the death penalty, but the trial judge changed his sentence to life without parole because of his youth. Another jury could not reach a verdict on the older mans sentence, and so he was also given life without parole. Jarvis was sentenced by that same jury to death in the gas chamber, partly because of his violent background.

Although his lawyers asked the trial judge for leniency, also on the basis of his youthhe was twenty-three when the crime occurred, just two years older than the accused spear manshe denied this appeal and sent him to death row. He has been there since 1990. There he must be patient, waiting for appeals to be filed, waiting for the outcomes.

Jarviss situation is unique in one way: he is the only man on death row living in his crime scene. Its as if hed been convicted of killing a store clerk in a robbery, and his cell had been set up in that same store, so that for the rest of his life, his every move was watched and he was even fed by people who identified with his victim, people who thought every day about the dead clerks wife and children. And some day, several of the workers at that store might participate in executing Jarvis. Jarvis has more opportunity than most people on this earth to face up to how people feel about him.

Jarvis is usually stoic about his situation. He talks about karma, and the path he himself took, the choices he made. He often asks me to tell the at-risk youths I volunteer with, You guys still have choices!

The hardest thing is that he has so few. He doesnt live on ordinary death row. Because the crime he is convicted of involved a guard, he lives in San Quentins security housing unit called the Adjustment Center. Men on the more relaxed part of death row can make phone calls, listen to tapes, use typewriters. Those in the security housing can have only a few books and a TV. They stay in their cells for all but a few hours of yard time three times each week. Jarvis cannot choose what or when to eat, when to exercise or shower. He cant turn the tier lights off or on, regulate the temperature in his cell, or have any control over when he receives visits or how long they last. I think it must be almost impossible to grow into a mature, responsible man when one is infantilized this way, and yet I have seen Jarvis grow.

Jarvis is very different today from the troubled defensive young man I met in 1986. He even looks different. When I met him, his face had a sullen, callous expression. But, as happens so often to patients with fatal or life-threatening illnesses, facing his death has opened him up. Having arrived at San Quentin with minimal reading and writing skills, he began to educate himself and to meditate. As I write, he is a mature thirty-five-year-old man, and he plays a constructive role on death row, helping younger men.

Not all officers hold a grudge against Jarvis. Quite a few have told me they respect the changes he has made in himself. I can tell from the relaxed bodies of the officers who know him that they do not fear him. In contrast to how they handle some other clients of mine, many greet Jarvis, smile at him, touch his shoulder. When I arrive for a visit, typically several officers I run into on my way in tell me to say hi to him.

Sergeant Burchfield was killed in June, and if Jarvis is going to have trouble with staff in the prison, it sometimes comes in the month of June. A few times during this month, Jarvis has been placed in the worst part of the prisonon the bottom tier of the security housing. The authorities who make this decision explain it as a convenience. This move is usually stressful at first, because Jarviss belongingsincluding his personal books and legal papersare all taken from him, although they are later returned.